


tuebor

by mikkal



Series: sleeping at last (oct '19) [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Child Noctis Lucis Caelum, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 20:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkal/pseuds/mikkal
Summary: The young prince is hers to protect and she's going to do so even if requires her to shield him with her own body.Whumptober 2019 Day 4: Human Shield





	tuebor

The night had been quieter than any of them predicted and that makes them drop their guard. They’re in the home stretch, not even forty minutes from the checkpoint for the south east gate through the Wall. It’s going to be fine.

No. This is a lie.

It all happens too quickly to understand exactly what transpired. All she knows is that everything hurts, and the prince won’t stop crying.

Tyll keeps her head down, curled around Prince Noctis, their cheeks pressed against each other. She can feel blood on her hands where they’re wrapped around to his back, can feel the unnatural way his spine shifts and the skin peels back. Bile rises to her throat, but she refuses to let it out, not with her young charge frightened and in pain.

“Shh,” she soothes, curling a hand to cup the back of his head, threading her fingers through his already matted hair. He hiccoughs, sobbing but quieter now. “Yeah. Yeah. It’s okay, Noct,” she whispers against his ear. They both know she’s lying, there’s fire burning and blood everywhere and the slow slick slither of the daemon who started it all on the prowl, searching for them. For Noctis.

In the distance she can hear people shouting. They’re never going to make it in time.

But she hopes anyway.

Tyll shifts until she’s cradling Noct in her arms a little more thoroughly, encompassing him all together so barely a peek of his hair is seen. It’s probably a bad idea, she thinks, to move him though it’s as little as possible, but she can’t bear the thought of that wretched daemon catching even a glimpse of him. He chokes on the pain, on the sound he wants to make, and her heart breaks.

Noct looks at her with wide trusting eyes, tears streaking down his cheeks to carve clean lines through the blood splattered on his skin. It’s not just his. Most of her own wounds are superficial, the only burning problem is the state of her leg, torn up with a bone very clearly sticking out through the skin. A compound fracture caused by their car turning over. While his injuries were from the snake daemon before the Crownsguard with them distracted it enough for her to take Noct and stumble away to hide.

The Crownsguard fell to the daemon’s many blades. They died screaming yet defiant, refusing to let it closer to their liege.

“T-Tyll,” Noct whimpers in the protection of her embrace.

She quickly shushes him again, freezing when the slither of the daemon—easily one of the largest daemons she’s ever seen though she hasn’t seen that many to be honest, with the face and torso of a woman and the body of a long, winding snake. It has six arms and each one wields a different but no less deadly sword—when the daemon stops far too close to their hideaway for comfort.

Tyll doesn’t close her eyes like she wants. If the daemon tries to come for Noct, she wants to see it coming. Because, maybe, then she can do something about it. She _is_ Crownsguard through and through after all. Made it through training and two years active duty before allowing herself to be placed as Noct’s caretaker, watchdog, what have you. She may not have seen as much action as the Kingsglaive, but she does know her way around a battle.

Right now, her one and only job is to shield Noctis. Not because of his status, not because of his power. But because the little eight-year-old under her is joy and light and so many good things that’s going to be crushed out of him too soon and she refuses to let it happen so quickly.

She feels pressure against her chest, and it takes her a moment to realize Noctis is curling his shaking hands around the edges of her jacket, holding onto her tightly. His eyes are closed, squeezed shut in the way she refuses to do. She brushes her hand through his hair again, twirling some of the locks around her fingers and tugging gently.

Noctis cracks open his eyes, reveals a sliver of midnight blue, and stares at her questioningly. Tyll smiles, wobbly and a little too sad, but it’s a smile, and winks. Sweat and blood get into that eye, making her squint. He smiles back, pulling at the wound stretching from his cheek to his temple.

The shouting gets closer. The daemon gets louder, more agitated.

Tyll tucks his head under her cheek and starts to hum quietly, letting him feel the vibrations of it from her throat and chest. He tucks his face into the crook of her neck, hissing at the pain, and stays there, still and quiet.

_You’re going to be okay_, she wants to say but can’t. _You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise_.

The daemon screeches something horrible. Its tail thrashes, tearing trees from the ground and splintering others in half. Noct whimpers. It whirls around, scenting the air. _Please_, Tyll begs to anyone listening. She wants to pretend she tastes a storm in the air or feels the ground shake or the bite of a blizzard. The gods haven’t been around in so long, but she wants to believe they would come for this little boy.

“Tyll,” Noctis murmurs into the hollow of her throat.

She grabs him tighter and noses his hair, breathing in the faint scent of his soap. He smells like wilderness underneath the smoke and the blood, like the little firefly cove they were at what seems like hours ago but was really only about an hour.

The rock they’re behind rips out of the ground and the daemon is there, looming and roaring its fury. Tyll doesn’t look. She picks Noctis up and lunges forward, tripping and staggering. Her leg screams, bones grinding together. Every step is agony. Her knee buckles under her weight.

Tyll barely makes it five feet before a sword’s blade comes crashing across her back, slamming her into the ground with such force there’s a moment where she can’t breathe, her lungs paralyzed.

Until seconds pass and she realizes, it’s not just for that moment.

Noctis is crushed under her weight, sobbing in earnest now. Carefully, slowly, Tyll wraps her hand around to his face and covers his eyes with her palm. She’s trembling all over, her vision speckles black, and her chest burns and burns with the lack of air.

She can’t feel her back or her legs. Her spine severed in half.

The daemon rears back for the final blow, intending on taking out Tyll _and _Noctis, when the air suddenly crackles with magic. She can’t turn her head to check, but she does recognize the shouted orders from Lord Amicitia. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a phantom blade slice through the air and the daemon snarls.

Relief has her sagging, dropping her forehead to the ground. Noctis’ shoulder brushes her ear and it’s only then she realizes she’s still covering his eyes and he’s distressingly quiet.

Tyll didn’t want him to see her die.

She still doesn’t. She’s not going to make it.

“Noct,” she whispers, tilting so she’s talking into his shoulder. He shudders with a moan of despair. “I love you, okay?

“Tyll—.”

She shakes her head weakly. “No. It’s okay.” Her hand drops, unable to sustain the energy to keep it there. He leans his cheek against the back of it, smearing blood and tears on her skin, but she doesn’t care. He’s warm. He’s alive. That’s all the matters.

Everything is so much colder now, so much harder. She gasps, panting. “You are…are remark—remarkable young man,” she slurs, voice fading. “Do…Do wonderful…things. Pr-Promise?”

He sobs into her hand. “_I promise_.”

She smiles faintly, tension releasing from her body. “Good,” she murmurs. “’m glad.”

King Regis shouting his son’s name is the last thing Tyll is ever aware of.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @mikkalia15  
twitter @mik_kal15  



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